People and Culture News
Creating a Supportive Work Environment For Each Other
There are many ways to show you care about your work colleagues and to let them know that they are important and that you are interested in them and their lives. We do this every day in many ways. It is likely that the most common way is the one we all do every day, with little consideration and quiet automatically by asking: how are you? how was your evening? How was your weekend? how are you going? This is a normal, natural healthy interaction that we can all engage in with ease (mostly).
However, we can find it a bit more challenging and uncomfortable when we notice a colleague doesn’t seem to be their ‘normal’ self and the ‘usual’ approaches you would take to engage with them don’t seem to be working.
Beyond Blues – Be You is a fabulous National Mental Health and Wellbeing Resource tailored for the Education including Early Childhood Education and Care Sector. They suggest that having a conversation with a colleague when they don’t appear their ‘normal’ self is a perfect way of showing you care.
They suggest having a Stop, Reflect, Act Conversation as a great way of showing you care and of demonstrating a willingness to provide support.
Stop: Make time to ask the person how they are going and Pause and Listen
Reflect: If there are concerns consider timing, space, policies, and professional boundaries before acting
Act: There are many ways to act, including – acknowledging feelings and experiences, offering practical support, encouraging self-care, promoting help seeking, following up and following through.
Life presents us all with bumps along the way and should we be experiencing one of those bumps how we cope can be influenced by our environments and the people in them. Having a workplace where you feel supported and where people show they care can make a tremendous difference to how we cope and how we recover.
Not being judged or made to feel ‘bad’ for what is happening for you and knowing your colleagues care about you, feeling supported and having a compassionate workplace can make a tremendous difference at a time when its likely to be needed the most.
Creating supportive workplaces where people know and feel supported is well known to be extremely valuable in maintaining positive mental health, recovery from a period of poor mental health and to our overall health and wellbeing.
We don’t need to have the answers, to be fixing or providing solutions for colleagues, yet by adopting the Stop, Reflect and Act Conversation approach and through building a caring, compassionate and empathetic working environment we can all make a huge difference at a time when a colleague might need it the most.
When supporting others please remember the importance of looking after yourself. You and your own self-care matter.
Beyond Blue – Be You Education is a National Program that provides Educators with knowledge, tools, and resources to enable people to achieve their best possible mental health. For more information on and to access the wonderful tools and resources from the Beyond Blue Be You Program please visit: www.beyou.edu.au
Don’t forget support is available via the Lady Gowrie Tas Employee Assistance Program provided by Relationships Australia by calling 1300 364 277 to make an appointment.
Beyond Blue: www.beyondblue.org.au
Lifeline: www.lifeline.org.au
For 24-hour crisis support and suicide prevention call 131 114
1800 RESPECT: www.1800respect.org.au
Employee Engagement and Wellbeing Survey
Just wanting to take a moment to provide a very brief update on where we are at with our LGT Employee Engagement and Wellbeing Survey.
We have met with SLT and provided an overview relating to the entire organisation, the Board have been provided with an overview. We have met with each GM and provided feedback and have attended staff meetings for each Division and provided feedback.
We have collated all the feedback provided from those who participated and with close to 500 comments there was a large amount of helpful feedback provided. There is an LGT Employee Engagement and Wellbeing Survey Action Plan that is very close to being finalised and will be presented to SLT prior to being shared with all LGT Employees.
We would once again like to thank every one who participated in the survey, for sharing your thoughts and feelings and for continuing to work with us on making LGT a great place to work.